It’s days like Friday that make me really love my school. I know, it’s the end of the semester, I won’t see most of my students for a month, but they are awesome people and if you met them you would understand why they merit this run on sentence. Friday we had a visit from a traveling museum. It was amazing. All my classes were cancelled and Benji, my co-teacher and I decided to drop in to the exhibitions and visit with our kids.
sixth graders in tea ceremony
So here is how it broke down:
My classroom became a Korean calligraphy classroom. I sat in with a class fifth graders and learned how to create K-style calligraphy. I folded the paper and wrote the names of my family members and their titles. Totally wowed my kids by knowing how to write in their language.
The art room became an exhibit on how to make tie dyed scarves. I love that in the photos you can see the kids jumping off the tables. Kids are assumed to be more disciplined here, but they are kids and jumping on and off furniture all the time.
The gym became an art museum. There were paintings, sculptures, photos, and fossils. Curators took the kids around and helped them. It was nice, because they could still be bouncy, noisy elementary kids, but they got to see cool regional art.
A sixth grade room was a green tea exhibit where women in traditional clothes taught the kids how to have a tea ceremony. They saw Benji and looking around and gave us a private lesson on tea ceremonies in front of the 6th graders. The girls took my camera and took a million photos.
1st grade was taught about the local fossil digs and how fossils are made and found.
The science lab, I know our elementary has a huge lab with refrigerated chemicals and a separate storage for other tools I’ve never seen in a K-6 school, was turned into a class on how to make traditional soaps. Kids made glycerine and sea salt soap with orange oil. That floor smelled awesome.
It was a great day to learn more about Korea and to develop relationships with my students.
After school we went for the end of the semester teacher’s dinner mentioned in the previous post. The fish dinner was great, as was the view of the bay and the new suspension bridge.
It is hard to top a weekend so cool. Remind me to tell you about Saturday’s day trip to the Muan White Lotus festival soon…
Jeollanam-do Salad 
Cool. Love it – every tidbit.
Thanks, there is so much to be fascinated by here. I’ll try to put together an overview of teaching here and what a kids school day is like. So incredibly different. 1-6th grade students have 10 minutes of unsupervised break after each 40 minute class! They just run all over the property like crazy people.
Oh, and no one pokes an eye out!
I think they have a similar break time after each class in Finland. Could it be that having some down time, rather than having to race to a class before a bell, actually helps learning?
I’m guessing yes…
And cool – I just finished my first short lesson in Korean!
Keep posting – no subject is too obscure!